


Accidentally in love

by Khalehla



Category: Men's Football RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Enemies to Lovers, Hatemance, M/M, Sort of? - Freeform, accidental confessions, minor Hömmels, minor Steno
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-27 02:48:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20038660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Khalehla/pseuds/Khalehla
Summary: See the thing is, Manuel is a very affectionate person. Shy, and slow to make real friends, yes, but when he considered someone one of his, he didn’t give a second thought to lavishing them with love. So Manuel absentmindedly saying ‘thank you, love you’ when someone did something nice for him? Not unusual. What was unusual today though, was that Manuel said it toKevin.





	Accidentally in love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Natteravn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Natteravn/gifts).

> SURPRISE!! Bet you didn't see this coming! :D

See the thing is, Manuel is a very affectionate person. Shy, and slow to make real friends, yes, but when he considered someone one of his, he didn’t give a second thought about lavishing them with love. So Manuel absentmindedly saying ‘thank you, love you’ when someone did something nice for him? Not unusual. What _ was _ unusual today though, was that Manuel said it to _ Kevin _.

See the thing is, Manuel and Kevin are Enemies. Capital E, Enemies. They’d been enemies since that Christmas function so many years ago when they were both new starters to the firm - Manuel the junior lawyer and Kevin on his internship - and Kevin, being a hated BVB fan, had insulted Manuel’s beloved Schalke and Manuel had “accidentally” tipped his half-full cup of steaming coffee down Kevin’s shirt.

(Manuel still claims it really _was_ an accident, since he’d been waving his hands around in fury trying to counter Kevin’s ridiculous claims of BVB’s supposed superiority, and really, it was Kevin’s fault he’d been standing so close to Manuel in the first place.)

It became a Thing over the next few years while they worked their way up into senior positions in the firm (Manuel still feels smug that he’d managed to prove himself so much faster and was now Senior Counsel for the firm under Köpke and Kevin was still an engineer. Granted being even just a junior engineer in the largest and most successful engineering and development company in all of Germany was worth all the bragging rights considering how hard it was to even apply for an internship, but _ still_. Senior Counsel!) that it was considered A Very Bad Idea to have Manuel and Kevin in the same place when they were both drunk. 

Manuel’s inhibitions were almost non-existent when he’d had a bit too much to drink, and he tended to get very loud and very passionate about things such as football.

Kevin just liked to drink, no matter his mood.

So, Manuel plus Kevin plus alcohol did not make for a happy ending if your name was Manuel Neuer and/or Kevin Grosskreutz.

Unfortunately for Manuel he can’t even use alcohol as an excuse when he says it. He’s distracted, not drunk. And he blames Benedikt.

Now Benedikt Höwedes is Manuel’s best friend so normally Manuel loved Benedikt very much and enjoyed spending lots of time with him. However, Benedikt was an _ engineer_, which meant he spent a lot of time with _ Kevin_, and for some reason that Manuel still couldn’t fathom was that Benedikt and Kevin got along really well despite the fact that Benedikt is just as much as a Schalke fan as Manuel is. 

(Manuel likes to use this as proof that Kevin was playing a long con and pretending to like Benedikt in order to annoy Manuel even more. Benedikt thinks that Manuel is delusional and really should examine why he’s so intent on hating Kevin. Manuel claims he hates Kevin because Kevin is a dick. Benedikt thinks Manuel’s an idiot.) 

So it really is Benedikt’s fault that when someone places a cup of coffee next to his sandwich while Manuel is busy scrolling through his Instagram feed and absent-mindedly mumbles ‘thanks, love you’ as he normally does because it’s _ Benedikt _ who normally gets him coffee from the more superior barista on the engineering floor, because seriously? How was Manuel supposed to know that Kevin was the one gave him the coffee and not Benedikt? Manuel would be forgiven for getting it wrong.

The very incredulous _ ‘what?’ _ that follows his accidental declaration of love makes his head snap up to realise that his Enemy is standing before him, mouth hanging open and eyes wide. Normally Manuel would make fun of Kevin looking like an idiot, but Benedikt and his pretty-boy moron of a boyfriend, Mats, is also there, looking just as stunned as Kevin.

“What?” Manuel demands.

Kevin’s mouth closes and opens like a fish.

But it’s Mats who says in a strangled voice, “Did you just tell Kevin that you love him?”

Manuel blinks. “What? No! Of course not!”

“Oh I’m sure you did,” Benedikt says, now looking amused. 

“Why would I tell _ Grosskreutz _ of all people that I love him?” Manuel demands.

“Good question,” Mats agrees, his expression going from shocked to evilly gleeful. “Are you two hiding a secret love affair behind all this hate?”

Kevin finally snaps out of his goldfish impersonation to snarl, “You need your head checked Hummels.”

“Well it would explain a lot,” Benedikt - the traitor - murmurs, lips tugging up.

“There is nothing to explain!” Manuel practically growls. When heads swivel around to look at them, he hunches his shoulders a little and whispers, “Why are you picking on me like this?”

“We’re not picking on you, Manu.” Benedikt takes the seat opposite him and pats him gently on the hand like Manuel’s a pouting child. Which he’s not. Manuel _ never _ pouts; it’s unbecoming of a senior counsel to one of the largest and most respected firms in Germany. “We were just a bit surprised, that’s all.”

“Surprised is one way of putting it,” Kevin grumbles, which earns him a glare from Manuel. “Anyways, I’m outta here. See you later, losers.”

Manuel continues to glare after him as Kevin walks towards the salad bar obviously down here to get his lunch as well. When he looks back up, Mats has seated and he’s now got two people smirking at him. “What is it now?”

Mats is about to say something but that earns him an elbow from Benedikt. Mats obediently keeps his mouth shut.

“So how’s the big case going?” Benedikt asks. “I heard they hired two new juniors to do the grunt work for you?”

Thankful for the distraction, Manuel launches into an only slightly exaggerated story of the two new juniors on their team who, on the one hand, are so similar that he’s genuinely surprised they aren’t twins, and on the other hand, for some reason he hasn’t figured out yet, hate each other so obsessively that he suspects that they spend their tea breaks having angry sex in the archiving room.

Manuel completely forgets about the whole incident with Kevin until a couple of days later, when just before a meeting with the head of marketing, Thomas plonks himself into the seat next to Manuel’s and says, “So, a little birdy told me that you and Kevin are secretly getting it on in the storage rooms when you’re not trying to kill each other.”

Manuel stares at his friend, blinking in confusing, until he finally parses what Thomas has just said. His lips peel back over his teeth. “_Hummels,_” Manuel snarls. Of course it’s Mats; that pretty-boy moron and Thomas are thick as thieves and the two biggest gossips in the building. Thomas’ shit-eating grin is all the answer Manuel needs. But before Manuel can go on a tirade over how there most definitely _ not _ any _ getting on _ in storage rooms or any other locations, Köpke enters the boardroom flanked by Hansi Flick and the rest of the marketing team. Thomas spends most of the meeting pretending to pay attention and waggling his eyebrows at Manuel; Manuel spends the meeting trying to pay attention while plotting different ways to murder the annoying self-titled duo that is ThoMats.

Unfortunately it doesn’t end there. The next week at the quarterly interdepartmental drinks, Mario siddles up to him as says, “So what’s this I hear about you and Kevin canoodling in the server room?”

Before Manuel can even protest, he is interrupted.

“There will be no canoodling of any sort in any of my server rooms,” Toni, the head of IT, warns him with a glare. “And really, Grosskreutz? Don’t you two hate each other?”

“Not anymore, apparently,” Mario chirps delightedly.

“There is no canoodling in the server room being done!” Manuel hisses at them.

“Stay out of the conference rooms as well,” Toni adds, completely ignoring him. “We have meetings and birthdays in there; I don’t want to think about what your sweaty ass has been up to in that room while I’m eating cake.”

Manuel lets out a barely muffled scream of rage and stomps off to get a drink.

Three weeks later and Manuel has come to the frustrating realisation that the entire legal team, most of the engineers on Benedikt’s floor and nearly everyone he has ever worked with thinks that he and Kevin are now an item. They can’t even be in the same room as each other without everyone surreptitiously - or in some of their friends’ case, very obviously - watching them interact. It’s creepy and annoying and embarrassing and he’s so frustrated that he even says this to Kevin once at another interdepartmental social event.

“What the hell do they think we’re gonna do?” Kevin asks while they’re both waiting for their drinks orders and trying to ignore half the room eyeing them. “Not like we’re gonna start fucking at the bar, or anything.”

Manuel starts coughing on the water he had just brought to his lips as something to do while waiting for his beer. Kevin, the asshole, starts thumping him on the back a little too hard.

Three beers later and they’re both still huddled together in a corner somewhere trying to shelter from their so-called friends’ teasing and debating on whether they should just leave the hell they were currently in and find another bar where they could drink in peace. If Manuel had been sober, he would have realised how _ leaving together _ would only make things worse, but it’s already been established that him and too much alcohol don’t exactly do wonders for his decision-making, so that’s exactly what they do.

They end up in a sports bar that’s showing the Bayern-Leverkusen game and they both start heckling Leverkusen for letting Bayern take the draw when they could have taken the whole three points from the Bavarian giants.

“Bloody Neverkusen,” Kevin grumbles at the end of the match, obviously pissed that BVB didn’t make the jump to the top of the table. “Can’t fucking trust them with anything.”

Schalke are still at fourth and he really doesn’t want those bloody bumble bees to win, but he also currently hates Bayern with the fire of a thousand suns after they spanked his beloved club 0-4 at home, so Manuel is a little conflicted. He decides, surprising even himself, to do the wise thing and keep his mouth shut.

The night, again a surprise, does not end with one or both of them throwing insults at each other and Manuel, in his good humour, pats Kevin on the back when they both drunkenly call for cabs and finally head home. Tucked in bed and just about to drop into sleep, Manuel surprises himself for the umpteenth time that night by thinking about how much more enjoyable hanging around Kevin is when they don’t have their idiot friends around.

It happens again at the next company social event: they find themselves sticking together whilst hiding from their nosy colleagues, then when no-one’s looking, they sneak out to another bar and finally relax enough to actually enjoy themselves. Kevin is, to Manuel’s everlasting surprise, not as much a dick when he’s not insulting Manuel’s beloved team. The fact they have some things in common - street food, good beer, their close relationships with their families, hating Bayern almost as much as they love their own football teams - means that they have a ridiculous amount of things to talk about. It’s, again, to Manuel everlasting surprise, not a bad way to spend a Friday evening.

The third time they sneak out of a company social they break pattern and get something more substantial to eat. Despite not knowing the reason behind it, Manuel can tell that Kevin’s got something on his mind that’s making him morose, and Manuel thinks lots of alcohol and a rowdy environment like a bar isn’t going to make Kevin’s mood any better. So they go get some kebabs from Kevin’s favourite street vendor and they sit at the uneven metal and chairs and they talk. Kevin tells him about his much younger brother who is getting bullied at school and Manuel feels ice in his gut because he’s a little bit too familiar with toxic high-school masculinity. Despite the topic, at the end of the night, Kevin gives him a small smile and thanks him shyly for just listening.

“Hey, anytime,” Manuel says, absolutely meaning it.

He’s smiling a lot more the next day - partly because he isn’t suffering from a smashing hangover like he normally does when he goes out drinking, and partly because he’s slowly coming to realise that maybe him and Kevin could actually be friends. The thought makes him quietly pleased.

The good feelings over the weekend end as soon he gets into work on Monday and he gets approached by the twins, both identical shifty looks on their faces. Manuel is gearing himself up to tell the two junior lawyers to mind their own damn business, when Bernd says, “We just wanted you to know that everyone is talking about you and Kevin and you should probably stay away from the cafeteria today.”

Manuel blinks at them both. “The cafeteria?” 

“And possibly the games room,” Marc-Andrè adds with a nod.

“The games room,” Manuel parrots rather stupidly.

“Unless you want everyone to get even more video evidence of you and Kevin together to post on the company social club site?”

Manuel pinches the bridge of his nose in frustration. Of _ course _ someone’s posted photos of him and Kevin on the social club site, probably as some sort of PR for interdepartmental friendships or some other bullshit like that.

He eventually squints at them. “Not that I don’t appreciate it, but why are you telling me this?”

Marc and Bernd exchange a quick glance.

“We’re lawyers; we gotta stick together,” Bernd says, Marc nodding some more.

Manuel is surprised to find himself charmed by his two juniors. “Heh. Okay. Makes sense. Thanks, by the way, for the warning. Much appreciated. I owe you both.”

The twins look so pleased with themselves that Manuel scurries off before he himself gets to witness them doing their own canoodling.

Manuel spends the next couple of weeks having his lunch in the small break room with the twins, at his desk doing work, or going out with Philipp Lahm. Their COO is genius-level competent, a good listener and also very scary (it’s the eyebrows, everyone seems to agree; they look perpetually judgy and Philipp had a way of looking at you that made you regret all your life choices), which means that Manuel gets to eat in a peace and quiet that he hasn’t experienced in weeks. It’s blissful.

Benedikt corners him the next Tuesday while he’s on the way to get a wrap at his favourite deli.

“You and I are going to sit outside in the sun,” Benedikt tells him seriously. “And we are going to enjoy our food and talk about our lives in the past week. Okay?”

“Okay,” he agrees meekly.

He’s missed his best friend, Manuel has to admit. Avoiding Mats means avoiding Benedikt too, and he’s suddenly grateful that Benedikt finally got sick of his disappearing act and did something about it. They don’t talk about anything important, Benedikt never once even utters Kevin’s name, and it’s this that makes Manuel finally tell Benedikt about the tentative friendship that he thinks is growing between him and Kevin.

“I told you he wasn’t that bad,” Benedikt smiles. “I honestly don’t know why you were so keen on hating him so quickly.”

Manuel just shrugs. “He insulted my club, Bene; you know I don’t stand for that.”

“But despite that, you’re now getting along really well.”

“Maybe not _ really _ well, but maybe he’s not that bad.”

“And he could be, maybe a good friend?”

“Maybe,” Manuel concedes softly. “He’s kinda okay.”

Benedikt looks amused, but only says, “You know there’s nothing stopping you from just having normally dinners with him? You don’t just have to go get drinks during socials.”

Manuel wants to roll his eyes at his friend’s obvious meddling, but all he says is, “I’ll think about it.”

A few weeks later, when the next email about the upcoming social drinks comes around, Manuel stares at it for a few minutes before he opens up a email and starts typing quickly; he can't help the grin on his face when he sees the response.

The next time they have lunch together, Manuel tells Benedikt that he’s not going to the company drinks because he actually has his own plans. Benedikt solemnly says, “I knew you had it in you” and pats him manfully on the shoulder.

Manuel is so pleased with himself that he’s thinking about pulling Benedikt into a manful hug, but then Benedikt grins at him and adds, “Don’t forget to use protection.”

Manuel punches him hard in the shoulder instead.


End file.
